Undressed
by Ooshka
Summary: Entry for IWTS 2012. An engagement party, a train ride, and a deep desire not to turn into Bill Compton have all led Eric Northman to the biggest test of his life. Just what will it take for him to pass? AH/OOC Based on the Lloyd Cole song of the same name.


**Here is my second entry for I Write the Songs. Once again, m****y beta was the lovely Thyra10, who has submitted her own entry Norwegian Wood, which you all should have read by now (and if you haven't, check it out, it's a great story of redemption and possibilities).**

**This is based on the Lloyd Cole song Undressed. Hope you all enjoy.**

**Disclaimer: This is purely for fun, not profit, and I do not claim any rights on the published works of Charlaine Harris, or the music of Lloyd Cole.**

I could sense her mood as soon as I opened the door of the flat. It was like a pressure-change from the stuffiness of the hallway to the cold, hard depths of despair. Sookie's despair. Guess it had been another shitty day at work for her then.

I briefly contemplated just turning around and leaving. I could go to the pub, say I was working late. Maybe I could even work late. There was always something to do at work. Although I'd have to get back on the Tube, and the Central Line, even this close to winter, was my idea of hell. Maybe it really was hell. It was probably coloured in red on the map for a reason.

And then I remembered the squeak in the door. The one Sookie kept saying we needed to fix. That 'we' wasn't like the royal we at all. That we, meant me. I knew that. I just didn't know what would fix a squeaky door and why we couldn't tell the landlord Mr Patel he needed to do it.

Was it a test? Possibly. Had I failed? Probably. Would there be another test in the future? No doubt.

Of course, now I had spent so long standing in the open doorway there was no going back. I had to go in and face, whatever it was that was going on. God, I really hoped it was a sex thing and I was reading this all wrong.

I closed the door and looked around hopefully for the trail of lingerie that would lead me to the bedroom. I couldn't make my brain quite believe it wasn't there. Was it so bad that I'd had a cruddy week too and wanted something to take my mind off it all?

"Is that you?" Sookie called out, which was a really dumb thing for her to do. Because who else would it be? And if it wasn't me, calling out and asking who was there wasn't a great defence strategy. Dialling 999 and hiding under the bed was a great defence strategy.

"Yes," I called back, as I put my bag down on the sofa. I'd have to move it later, I realised that. Sookie wasn't keen on stuff left all over the sofa. Apparently, it wasn't to be used for storage.

Time to face the music.

I pushed open the door to the bedroom, and there was Sookie, sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at the wall. She looked miserable, and there were tear-stains down her cheeks. But she was only wearing underwear.

A part of my brain said that I should be focussing on the misery. She needed a 'cheer up' speech, or possibly she needed to discuss things, formulate some kind of plan as to what to do. But most of my brain was just occupied looking at Sookie in her underwear. Her boobs were quite magnificent. It took time appreciate them properly. In fact I was suddenly overcome with a feeling of contentment. This was definitely a million times better than sitting in a pub watching the football. This was viewing entertainment. If I could just get this on the Sony Bravia in the living room, I'd never want to leave the house.

"Are you just going to stand there all bleedin' night?" Sookie asked me. Ah, yes. Standing in the doorway. Not a good look. Didn't know why. Seemed to be a rule. Maybe it suggested inactivity, or something?

I don't think she realised just how distracting the boobs were. Because there was always that chance, however slight, that she might have a massive bra failure and a nipple would just pop out. See, that would be an awesome feature in a bra. I couldn't understand why Marks & Spencer weren't all over that opportunity.

Sookie was still waiting for me to do…something. "So…how was work?" I asked, as I tried to get my eyes to move away from the boobs. Nope. Not happening. Sookie sighed and the probability of nipple appearance got infinitesimally larger.

They weren't great odds, but they were odds I'd take any day.

"Bloody awful!" Sookie exclaimed.

"Well. That's no good…" I started to say, but she continued on.

"I mean, I know, don't I? What the sales are meant to be. I'm the supervisor, and I've seen the, the, you know, the plan they put out, and it was all supposed to be the lead up to Christmas sales and people coming in to stock up cheap. But no one wants to buy homewares this early. It's barely bloody autumn. They've gotta wait until it's actually Christmas and everyone's sitting at home, watching Gordon bleedin' Ramsay trying to stuff a turkey he raised himself. Then they all come in wanting roasting trays and stuff like that, but right now, right now all they want is the best seat in the pub by the fire and a pint in their hands. So Andre's all like, 'Sookie, have you seen the week's total?' when he knew I had. There wasn't much I could do about it, was there? I don't set them prices. But he made it all sound like we'd not been pulling our weight, and that it was because we hadn't stacked the displays properly. My bloody arse, we hadn't. I just haven't got enough staff to have someone fix it all up every time a customer moves the stock around, and pokes around in all the boxes. It's not my fault no one wants to shop at that poxy department store, not when they can get the stuff cheaper off the internet. They only come in to touch it all, have a good close-up look and mess up my displays. Then they bugger off and get it on Amazon. And I get it in the neck! I bloody hate my job, sometimes."

Sookie let out a big sigh. I checked. No nipple. Bugger. OK, next step was to say something encouraging, or helpful. Which one did I choose? I wasn't sure. Maybe encouraging?

"Well, you'll sort it out," I said. That got me a scathing look and no nipple at all. "Why? Have you lot buggered up the internet like you did the bloody banks?" she asked me.

Well, I wasn't personally to blame for the global financial crisis. And I worked for a fund manager, not a bank. But I've learned that travelling down that road with Sookie was just a one-way ticket to mutual annoyance.

OK. So not encouraging then. Let's try helpful. "Maybe you just need to explain it to Andre? Have a meeting with him, discuss this sales plan. Pull out, um, some stats that show the trends?"

Sookie snorted. "That might be how it works in the City, Eric, but it doesn't work like that in the store, I can tell you. I just have to lump it, don't I? I don't get to set targets, or, or, nothin'. I just have to smile at the customers, smile at bloody Andre when he tells me what a crap job I'm doing, smile at Ms Le Clerc when she comes through acting like she's the bloody queen. Smile and shut up. That's what they pay me for, innit?"

Probably it was. I discarded that as a response, though. I didn't think it would go down very well. I also discarded offering to pay her to just sit around in her underwear, saying I'd rub her feet and she could tell me more about what had happened and suggesting we just have sex because it would take her mind off it.

Except, maybe I shouldn't discard that one? She might be up for it.

I sat on the bed next to Sookie and put my arm around her shoulders. Maybe I stared at her boobs. A little…or a lot. She kept sighing, which made them go and up down and it was hard not to notice. "At least you've got the weekend off work," I said to her. "So…you know." I thought that was fairly eloquent. I tried nuzzling her neck, but she squirmed away.

"We can't have sex, Eric." Translation: Sookie didn't want to have sex. Well, if that was the case, why did she sit around in just her underwear? It was an invitation, it really bloody was.

Maybe she'd change her mind? I could persuade her, I was sure of it. I grabbed a handful of boob. Yeah, that felt as nice as it looked.

"Oi!" Sookie yelled. "Off!" She slapped my hand away. "We have to get ready."

Oh. Yeah. We had to go out. Well, we didn't have to. Sookie wanted us to go out. To Tara and JB's engagement party.

I threw myself backwards on the bed. "I don't want to get back on the Tube." I didn't. The Tube sucked, and going to Barking was a drag.

"We don't have to. They're in Billericay, remember? I told you they'd moved."

Yes. No. I'd missed that conversation. I wondered when it had taken place. Maybe Sookie had been talking to me from the shower again, and I'd been distracted. So it wasn't really my fault, was it?

"Yeah," I said. I wasn't sure that was better. I didn't really fancy heading all the way into Billericay to hang around in a pub and watch a bunch of people I barely knew talk about boring shit I didn't care about. Babies, DIY, camping holidays, whether they're killing off the planet by taking the Range Rover to do the school-run. None of it was relevant to me and Sookie was it? But she wanted to go to these boring evenings, and then she was all shitty at the end of it. I couldn't see the point in putting yourself through something you didn't enjoy. Repeatedly.

I was only there because if I didn't go, there was no sex and I'd learnt that lesson the hard way.

Sookie patted my leg, but not in a comforting way, and not in a way that suggested she was going to touch something better in a minute. More like a 'get a move on' kind of pat. Like you'd give to a dog to get it to stop standing on your foot. "Get yourself changed, then," she said, and then she stood up and moved over to the wardrobe.

I closed my eyes, and I could hear the sound of the coat hangers scraping along the metal bar as Sookie flicked through her clothes looking for something to wear.

I put my hands behind my head and opened my eyes, making the most of the last chance I'd have to appreciate Sookie in her lingerie for a few hours. I hoped she'd bend over to get her shoes before she got dressed. That might make up for the boring evening I had ahead of me.

She did, but only briefly. And then she turned around, and looked annoyed again. "Are you just going to lie there all night, Eric?" she asked me.

It was a trick question, because it wasn't a real choice. If it was a real choice I would definitely have been voting for lying here all night, with Sookie, naked.

But that option was off the table for the foreseeable future.

"You really want to go?" I asked Sookie.

"It's not a case of want, Eric. I have to. I mean, I've known Tara for years and years. It'd look dead weird if I didn't show up, wouldn't it?"

Well…probably. But did we actually care?

"We could tell them we went away," I suggested.

"Where?" Sookie snorted, as she held up possible outfits in front of her and looked in the mirror.

"I dunno. On one of those weekend trips, you know. Say we went to Italy. Rome or something."

That at least made Sookie turn around to look at me. Shame she was still holding some blue dress in front of herself though. And frowning. "You want to say we just took off? And went to Rome?"

"Yeah. Why not? You always say you want to do something like that. So let's just say we did. And then stay here. Just the two of us. Not answer our phones. Snuggle." I stood up so I could hug her from behind. After all, the back of Sookie was still just in her underwear. She had a very perky bum. It was making the part of me in contact with the top of her bum feel quite perky.

Really didn't want to get on a poxy bloody train and go to a poxy bloody party.

"So, let's get this straight, then," Sookie said, stepping away from me. She was no fun sometimes. "You want to take me on a pretend trip to Rome, so we can stay here, in this flat, and not go anywhere, not even to the engagement party of some of my oldest friends?"

Well, when you put it like that it didn't sound like my finest idea ever. But that wasn't all the weekend was going to entail, was it?

"We could spend the whole time in bed?" I suggested. Sookie looked grumpy still. Bugger. "I could take you out for a nice meal? Take your mind off of work?"

"This party is going to take my mind off work, Eric. Somewhere, in that pub in Billericay is a bloody great big gin and tonic with my name on it. And no, I don't want a _pretend_ weekend in Rome instead. I want…oh, never mind." Sookie sighed, and went back to staring at herself in the mirror. "D'you like this one?" she asked.

"The other one was better." I wasn't really paying attention. I got up and walked into the kitchen to get a glass of water.

"You think?" Sookie's voice said. "Not too much like a WAG-wannabe? I don't wanna look like all them other girls, all chavvy and what-not."

"No" I said. "Definitely not. You won't look like that." Really, I didn't much care what she wore. It'd be nice, I was sure of it. But Sookie without clothes would win hands-down every time.

Although sometimes clothes were maybe a good thing. I went into the bathroom not realising that's where Sookie had ended up. "Oh, sorry" I said, trying to back out.

"It's OK" she said. "I'm only peeing. And I'm done now. Come in and close the door."

"Yeah. Sure. Right." Sookie washed her hands and then pushed past me to leave, smiling at me as she did so.

I was never sure what to do in these moments. I mean, it wasn't like I'd never seen Sookie naked, and in all sorts of intimate positions. I had a whole folder of images stored in my brain that ran the gamut from the relatively tame 'suitable for boring department-head meetings' to the decidedly explicit 'only to be pulled out if I was home alone and Sookie was more than an hour away by Tube'. But this whole sharing a bathroom thing, sometimes that got awkward.

Was it supposed to be awkward? How did it work if you lived together for years and years? Or if you were married? I felt like I should know by now, but Sookie was the first woman I'd ever really lived with, apart from my mum. And I made a point of not walking in on her in the bathroom.

Sometimes I thought that having been raised by a single mother I should be better at this stuff, more sophisticated about the appearance of tampons under the sink in the bathroom, not quite so fascinated when Sookie washed her bras and hung them over the racks on the radiators. My mum had done what she could, but she'd been working a lot when I was growing up. We had our own lives. Her out there doing marketing jobs or running her business, me at home doing my maths homework, watching the football and eating ready meals from Waitrose.

In fact prior to moving in with Sookie my life hadn't been all that different, really. Sure I had friends, and I went out, to the pub or clubbing. Went to bars, met girls, some of whom I shagged, and some of whom I dated. Briefly, anyway. I didn't seem to have much problem finding a girl if I wanted one. They said I was nice-looking, which was something my mum said too, but then she was biased. They also said that they liked the fact I was six foot five because that meant they could wear their heels as high as they wanted. Well, that was all right for them. I was the one who had to find suits that fitted properly.

But the girls came and went, and even the relationships, if you could call them that, didn't last all that long. I was focussing on my career, after all, and there were still a lot of nights doing work I'd brought home, watching the football and eating another ready meal for one. Sometimes it was like very little had changed since I'd been ten years old.

Despite the awkward bathroom transfers, it was a lot better having Sookie here. And maybe not just because we had a transparent shower curtain around the bath.

When I came back out of the bathroom and saw Sookie, I had to admit that she did look good. She was wearing a dress that was kind of like bronze ribbons wrapping all around her body. Very tightly.

"You like?" Sookie asked, as she spun around. "It's a bandage dress. Well, Topshop version, anyway. I dunno. Not too much, is it?"

"No. No it's great," I said. It was great, but it was going to be a torturous evening as all that dress did was remind me of what lay underneath it.

I checked my watch. So many hours until I would be allowed to peel it off her. I studied the dress. How did it come off? I couldn't see a zip. Did you just pull it? And what underwear was underneath it? Was there a bra?

Crap. I'd spent too long in the bathroom and missed all the good stuff.

"Are you getting changed?" Sookie asked me, which probably meant I should.

"So, I can wear jeans then?"

"No, wear a suit."

"But I'm wearing a suit now."

"Just…I dunno. Freshen up or something. You probably don't need a tie."

"So…no tie, but a suit, just a different suit?" I tried clarifying.

"Yeah, and a clean shirt."

"OK." As long as I knew what the rules were, it was fine. And the rules weren't too bad, even the ones I didn't get. Granted, left to my own devices I'd just wear this suit, and I probably would have gone straight from work. But then if I was left to my own devices, I'd probably just stay home and get a takeaway and watch the telly. Or go out with my friends, not Sookie's.

But then left to my own devices, I wouldn't have Sookie. And I'd really miss her boobs. And some other stuff.

It had been her body that first attracted me to her. I'd gone to buy a wedding present for my cousin Stan, which had been a chore I could have done without but my mum had refused to do it for me as she had tickets for Wimbledon. Nice for some. She wouldn't include me in the gift she'd bought either. So there I was, wandering around this department store on a Saturday absolutely clueless as to what to buy. I didn't know what half of this stuff did, let alone what you bought for a wedding present for someone you hadn't seen since Christmas Day 2007. It seemed like a lot of trouble to go to just so I could go to a wedding in Southend and, hopefully, shag a drunk bridesmaid.

And then Sookie appeared and asked me if I needed help. I really did because I was about to give up and just sign my name on the card on Mum's present when she wasn't looking. And Sookie had nice tits, so I wasn't averse to her sticking around. Trouble was that the tits were distracting and when she asked me what Stan liked, I said "Girls". At least I didn't say 'girls with big tits'. And that would have been wrong anyway, if his wife Rachel is anything to go by.

But Sookie laughed, and laughing was good because that made her boobs shake more. I was pretty sure she'd seen me looking by that stage. She didn't seem to mind though. And I was almost eighty per cent certain she was pushing them in my direction to make me look anyway.

"Well, do they have a list?" Sookie asked.

"List?" I wasn't sure how that was going to help. I was the one who needed the shopping list. But no, Sookie explained that, if you were getting married, you could make up this document stating every item you ever wanted to fill your new semi-detached house in an estate outside of Chelmsford, and then people bought you all that shit. Huh. I just…that hadn't occurred to me.

I felt stupid, and it wasn't a great feeling. It made the fact my mother had been saying 'Just get something off the list Eric' make a lot more sense. I really should learn to ask my mother questions.

In the meantime though, I had Sookie the helpful shop assistant with her bouncy boobs and her nice smile and she was going to help me. Was it bad that I picked the items that she had to bend over to retrieve? I didn't really know why Stan and Rachel needed a soup ladle and a sauce ladle. Actually, scratch that. I didn't really care. I just liked the fact that they were stored in little drawers at the bottom of the display cabinet and Sookie had to bend over to pull them out for me. Well, she could have just squatted, I guess. The bending over and sticking out her bum, that was a sign.

So I took her number. And although I still went to Stan's wedding and managed a rather desultory liaison with a spectacularly up for it bridesmaid called Isabel, I couldn't stop thinking about Sookie and about how nice it had been when she'd helped me out. And her tits. Especially those.

A week after the wedding I called Sookie up and took her out for a drink. And she wasn't all that annoying, which was a real bonus in someone with a body like hers. She was actually nice to talk to, as well as look at, and not only did I get the benefit of boob-shake when I made Sookie laugh, but she could make me laugh too. I liked laughing with Sookie. I liked that she was happy to do silly things with me, that she would spend all weekend in her underwear, or naked, and didn't mind too much when I wanted to watch the football, or had to work late, or any of the other things that I really, really enjoyed and I just liked her. A lot. Mostly when she was undressed, but all the time really.

And here we were now; me aged 29, Sookie 26. Officially living together. We were doing great, considering. We were on the way to…well. Something. Something further down the track that I hadn't really thought about. I liked the present though. The present was great.

Mostly. Mostly the present was great. At least it had been until very recently.

I just didn't understand why now, nearly two and a half years after we'd met, things felt…difficult. Like something should be happening. But I didn't know what. There didn't seem to be a definite rule like not standing around in doorways and not leaving crap on the sofa.

Most likely, it was to do with the flat. The other flat. The one I'd had before Sookie.

The one I still had, even though I kept saying I was going to get rid of it.

I'd bought it with the inheritance from my dad, who'd died of cancer when I was five. And for a while it had been great, living in a flash, new, apartment building in Docklands. I'd lucked out and managed to get one with the stone floor installed. The developers had gone bust not long after starting the project, and it was only a couple of the flats that had ever had that feature installed. The rest of them had boring fucking laminate floors all the way through.

But that stone, that was something else. A talking point, and it was good to have something to talk about when you took someone home with you. And all the girls I'd ever taken there admired that floor. I had some great memories attached to it. Of Sookie, as well. Not just of the random girls that had been through the flat before her.

It was just that when it came down to it, when Sookie and I decided to move in together, she said no. She said she didn't want to live in a glorified bachelor pad that was all black and grey and boring and mainly designed around where the best place to put the telly was. She said the floor made her feel cold and like she was sitting in a cave and not a flat.

So I got to keep the telly. I also kept the flat, although Sookie didn't know that for a while. That had been a horrific argument, and I thought I might lose Sookie over it. She just didn't seem to understand that this just wasn't the market to be trying to shift property in. One day I would sell it, but right now it was better to rent it out.

Eventually she stopped going on about it. Which was good. Great, even. Although sometimes I could tell, when she was really pissed off at me, sometimes she was mostly pissed off about that flat.

I just wasn't ready to say goodbye to it yet.

The trip out to Billericay wasn't too bad in the end. No drunk City workers on the train for one thing. And I was trying to be on my best behaviour, because Sookie had been so down earlier. I didn't even complain when she said she couldn't walk to the station because of her high heels, and we were forced to sit on a bus with a bunch of teenagers who thought it was funny to shout things to Sookie. They were mostly harmless, just fucking annoying. Sookie took it all with good grace though. "Nothing new," she said, as she checked the upholstery on the seat, before sitting down on it. It paid to, in these buses.

I glared at the kids, but they ducked their heads down so you couldn't see their faces under their hoods.

Sookie put her hand on my arm, and I turned to look at her. Fuck them. She was with me, anyway.

The train journey was livened up by Sookie describing to me the secret lives of all the other passengers in our carriage. It was a game she'd invented and she was really good at it. "That bloke," Sookie said, nodding at a non-descript guy about 30 several seats ahead of us. "He's a, um, shape-shifter. Can turn into anything. Likes to be…um, a collie. Got a thing for sheep, perhaps?" She frowned and looked thoughtful.

"But he just looks normal," I pointed out.

"Well, he's hardly going to advertise it, is he? He's going to be all, um, incognito like. So the baddies don't get him." Sookie nodded.

"You could be right," I said to her. "Plus he probably doesn't want to alert everyone to the fact he spends half his life pretending to be a dog and sniffing other dog's bums, does he?" Sookie giggled at that. Point to me. "I still think though, he should look a little bit more…special, or something?"

"Phfft. I think you miss the point of being able to hide your secret abilities, Eric."

I shrugged. "Maybe. Anyway, how come you know so much about stuff like that anyway?"

"S'borin' at work when it's not busy. So I watch people. And I work with some right raving nutters."

Well, that was true. As bad as my office could be the store Sookie worked at was full of posers and pretty-boys…and, OK. So I just didn't like that Quinn guy who sold sports equipment. And who used to date Sookie. But that was OK. Pretty sure there wasn't a rule about me hating Quinn.

When we finally got to the party it was in full swing and we had to push through a load of people just to get anywhere near Tara and JB. "I love your dress," Tara said, as she gave Sookie a very enthusiastic hug.

"It's just Topshop," Sookie said, shrugging. "Nothing special."

I looked at the dress again, now that Sookie had taken off her coat. Yeah, it did look nice. But mostly what I liked about Sookie was all the stuff she wasn't wearing tonight. Unlike most of the girls here, she wasn't a weird orange colour. And she didn't have those frightening false eyelashes glued to her face. And half her hair hadn't been sold by a Russian orphan to pay for their kidney transplant. Or anything. No, Sookie was pretty much natural. Sure, there was the tan from her trip to Greece with her friend Amelia, and she did something to her blonde hair to make it brighter, and it wasn't like she wasn't wearing any make-up. But compared to the other girls, Sookie might as well have been naked.

I gave myself a mental slap. I really must not think about naked Sookie when I am stuck in a pub for the foreseeable future. It will only lead to disappointment.

I made small-talk with JB, mostly about the football and then glanced around the pub. Oh, fuck no. I didn't want to see anyone from work tonight. Especially not Bill Compton. I guess this was his local.

It wasn't that I didn't like Bill. He was one of those guys who'd just been there forever and didn't seem to get any further along. So when I'd been asked to take on the role of Head of Client Liaison and set up the department, somehow they'd also convinced me to take on Bill who'd been in Pricing up until then.

He was fine to deal with at work; I just didn't see the need to fraternise with him outside the office. He was nearly 40 and lived alone and he was just boring. He didn't seem to have any interests other than football and work, and while I liked West Ham as much as the next person, and while the client database he'd been building was very useful, I felt there had to be more to life than just that.

I was more interesting than Bill, wasn't I? I was sure I was, because I was fairly sure that Sookie wouldn't have stuck around if I wasn't. And while I might not be able to sit in a train and let my imagination conjure up all sorts of weird and wonderful histories for the random people who were travelling with us, I had something to offer, didn't I?

My mother might disagree. My mother seemed to spend half her life telling me I had to pull my act together, but I think that was just force of habit, given that she'd spent over half her life saying the same things to me by this point in our relationship.

Maybe I should get her a dog for Christmas? One of those ones you could put in a handbag, and then she could just worry about the dog and not about me and everyone might be happier.

Who was I kidding? My mother Pamela was not a dog person. No, I'd have to think of something else. Or Sookie would. She was usually good at sorting out presents. Plus, she got staff discount.

"Are you getting the drinks in?" Sookie asked me, as I was trying to duck down behind some random guy in the hope Bill wouldn't spot me. He looked like he was here by himself, so if he saw me, there'd be no escape.

"Uh-huh," I said, and then I had to slowly manoeuvre my way through the crowds of people in a weird sort of half-crouch so Bill wouldn't see me. It was a pain in the bum being tall sometimes, you were always conspicuous. I briefly wondered if that was how Sookie felt about being big-chested. Did she hate the fact it made random spotty kids in hoodies yell at her on the bus? But then the barman caught my eye and I placed our order.

"Eric. You all right, mate?" said a voice next to me. Oh goddamn fucking Bill. He had to arrive just at this precise moment, didn't he? He had a nose for when someone was getting a round in, and now I'd have to buy him a drink. I was at the bar, with the barman, and had my cash-card out. That was just how it worked.

At least this was a rule which occasionally had some benefit for me though, unlike some of Sookie's rules. Like the fact you had to make sure towels got hung up again. Actually, that had been a rule my mum had tried to drum into me too. No one ever believed that the towels just slipped off the rail after I'd left the bathroom.

Tonight though, the rule about buying a mate a drink wasn't exactly working out for me. And probably calling Bill a mate was stretching it. Work-mate, maybe. Casual acquaintance, definitely.

Ghost of Christmas future, I really fucking hoped not.

"What are you having Bill?" I asked him, and he rattled off some poncey lager that he'd no doubt seen reviewed somewhere. He was full of titbits like that. Guess he had nothing else to do with his time.

I did though. I wasn't going to end up like Bill. I had Sookie to look out for me for one thing, and I had an actual career that wasn't just me piddling about with a fucking database and I had…well, I wasn't sure what else I had. I wasn't sure the TV counted, quite possibly Bill had a better one. I didn't want to ask him and risk a long and involved analysis of every flat-screen on the market.

No, what I actually wanted, about now, was to talk to Sookie. I was, however, stuck with Bill. "So, I finally got to the bottom of that corporate action," he said, sipping the drink I'd bought him.

"Uh-huh," I said. We had been over this, that afternoon in fact. Granted, the valuation we'd done for one of our big pensions clients hadn't come out with the right figures. They were due to be splitting some of their funds from one scheme into two in the next month so our valuations had to be dead on and it wasn't something we could let slide. And Bill was good at tracking this kind of stuff down; given a pricing problem he was like a dog with a bloody bone until he got to the bottom of what had happened.

But I didn't need to hear about it more than once a day, did I? Especially when the story involved many long conversations with Clancy, who was even older and more boring than Bill himself was.

Sometimes I'd see the way they'd look at me, those old blokes from work. You could tell they thought I was some kind of upstart or something, the way I'd waltzed in there with my economics degree and got shunted up the ranks pretty smartly. Those guys, the ones who started straight from school running messages for the dealers, or whatever the fuck they'd done, those guys were stuck forever in the bowels of the Operations department and I guess that knowledge really sucked.

I would not want to be them.

"Victor was looking for you, round five o'clock," Bill said casually, when he'd finally finished his discourse on the state of the Corporate Actions department.

"What?" I asked. I'd been distracted. Sookie was looking at me, probably wondering where her gin and tonic had gone. I'd held it up and nodded at her to let her know I was on my way, I was just unavoidably delayed. Fuck off, Bill. Fuck off and die.

"Yeah. Something about the N.A.V. for Reading?"

Shit, fuck, hell. Yeah, the net asset valuation for the Reading city council pension scheme. I was supposed to sign that off and say it was OK, and give it to Victor. And I hadn't. And he'd be looking for my bollocks on a platter come Monday.

Fuck off, Victor. Fuck off and die.

I held up the gin and tonic again. "I better get this over to Sookie."

"Oh. Yeah. The missus," Bill said. "Short leash, then?" He chuckled to himself.

I was tempted to say something back to Bill, something that suggested that no, I wasn't on a short leash and maybe something along the lines of my earlier sentiments about fucking off and dying, but I didn't. Sookie was smiling at me. I'd just go and talk to her, forget about Victor and Bill and try to enjoy the evening.

And let's face it, compared to talking to Bill, I might even enjoy having one of those conversations with Sookie's friends about the strollers in Mothercare or the fact you had to enrol a foetus to get into a good nursery school these days, or how hard it was to find a decent house, with a garden, anywhere within commuting distance of London.

"Oh, thank God," Sookie said, when I handed her the glass. "I was bloody gasping."

"I know. I got waylaid."

"Bill?" she asked, peering around me to wave at him. I really wished Sookie could read my mind about then, as she would have heard me thinking, quite clearly, don't do that it will just encourage him. Sometimes Sookie was too nice for her own good.

Bill appeared to have found someone else to annoy though, so we were safe. At least until one of Sookie's friends turned up to talk about their new house, new baby or new worm farm.

"Aw," Sookie said. "It's nice you try to be his mate. Poor bloke, he looks like he still lives with his mum."

OK. Well, I felt a tiny bit bad now for the whole 'fuck off and die' thing. Because really, I didn't hate Bill. I just didn't need him around all the time. And he'd scored me points with Sookie, so that counted for something, didn't it?

"Yeah," I said. "He's all right. Means well enough."

Sookie smiled at me and we went over to join the others. The night wasn't as mind-numbingly boring as I'd feared. I spent some time talking to Tara's fiancé JB and his mate Calvin about the property market. JB had wanted to keep their old place in Barking as an investment, but they'd had to sell it to get the new house in Billericay. Yeah, I thought that was a dumb move. After all, you didn't want to get rid of a perfectly good investment.

And I really liked my flat in Docklands.

The coolest thing I ever saw was in that flat. It was Sookie, naked, on the stone floor. She was smoking some of my cigarettes; it was before I'd given up. I think she was trying to make a point about how gross they looked, and she was doing a crap job of smoking anyway. Whenever she took a puff she just exploded into a fit of coughing.

But it was her expression, when I'd opened the door, which I remembered the most clearly. She'd turned to look at me, cigarette in one hand, legs crossed, eye-brow arched in a kind of 'don't ask, I'm just sitting here' look. Fuck that was hot. She was hot.

Who could blame me for wanting to keep the flat? As a shrine to Sookie? To Sookie in all her magnificent, naked, glory?

Well, no one. Except maybe Sookie.

So while I had a pretty good night, all things considered, something went wrong with Sookie and I had no fucking clue what it was. One minute she was laughing and joking with a bunch of scary looking birds with their fake hair, fake lips, fake tans and fake fucking boobs and the next minute we were in a mini-cab that smelt of stale beer and old kebabs and she was all stony silence.

The silence lasted all the way until we got onto the train, and then she shivered. "Cold," she said.

"Oh. You can have my coat," I said to her. That would cheer her up, and I needed her cheered up for when we got home and I was allowed to investigate that nice dress. I really liked that dress. And I was horny.

Sookie said "Thanks," and gave me a small smile. Granted, it wasn't much of a smile, but it was something. I wished Mum had been here to see the whole coat thing. She was always banging on about how I had to treat women properly and not be a pillock all my life. And I was getting better. Once I would have just told Sookie she should look for a warmer coat when the Christmas sales started.

For someone who ran a party-planning business and didn't pen an advice column, Mum usually had a lot of advice for me. She'd always been very adamant that I, as she put it, behave myself and not act like an idiot with women. I'd like to say I'd always followed her instructions, but I'd be lying. I tried…sometimes. Sometimes it was just easier not to. And Mum, well, she was disappointed. It wasn't hard to tell with Mum. She'd purse her lips and sigh and say "Oh, Eric. I thought I brought you up better than that!"

And she had. Mostly. She'd certainly brought me up to aim big. I was the first person in the family to get a place at university, for a start. Not bad for someone who'd been raised by a single mother, even one with a bit of family money she'd turned into her own business. And although we all liked to pretend the class system didn't mean anything these days, Sookie had once confessed to thinking me 'dead posh' when she'd first met me. A part of me had liked that, liked that she looked up to me. Thought I was special.

And so I picked stuff I was good at, and I did that. I was good with numbers. I liked getting things right and being rewarded for it. I was good at getting people to do what I wanted, at least, at work I was.

I wasn't so good with women. So most of the time, I didn't even try. If they thought they were getting involved with a dick, then they couldn't blame me when it all went pear-shaped, could they? Even Karin. She'd stuck around the longest, before Sookie, but even she'd reached the end of her tether.

I wasn't sure what had been worse. The last final row with Karin, or facing my mother for Sunday lunch afterwards and having to explain that Karin was no more.

I hoped to God I never had to do that again. There's nothing like my mother telling me what idiot I'd been to make me feel like I'm 12 again, and that's a feeling I could live without.

But I didn't have to. Because I had Sookie, and she wasn't going anywhere. Although she was still quiet.

"You all right?" I asked her, as the train lurched forward and nearly sent a drunk guy sprawling into another guy's lap. "Watch it!" the guy sitting down said.

"Yeah," Sookie said, quietly, pulling my coat around her. "I just…oh, it's nothing."

"Well, I think you have to let the Andre thing go," I told her. I'd given myself the same pep-talk earlier when I'd been dwelling on what Victor might have wanted. There wasn't anything I could do until Monday morning.

"Oh, no. It's not that," Sookie said. "No, it was just some…stuff that came up, at the party."

"When you were talking to Bill?" I asked. He had eventually cornered our group, well, Sookie really. Christ I hope he hadn't said anything about the Christmas party three years' earlier. We'd all been hammered and it wasn't pretty. And I hadn't even remembered the fact I'd told Indira that I'd always wanted to know how difficult it was to get a sari off until Victor told me the next day. He thought it was hilarious, but then all the women in the office knew that you couldn't go near Victor after he'd been in the pub at lunch, and, if you did have to talk to him, you stayed out of arm's reach. Indira put on a brave face, but she scuttled past me pretty quickly in the hall even to this day. Not my finest hour, and certainly not something I was proud of. It definitely fell into the 'Sookie doesn't need to know that' pile.

Was it weird that I didn't care if Sookie saw me sitting around in my pants watching the Hammers play, wearing a t-shirt stained with a long-eaten curry, and having the odd scratch when it was required, but that I didn't want her to think I was a dick to women? Any more than I wanted my mother to think I was? I cared what they thought of me and that just made things really, really difficult.

I hated difficult.

"No," Sookie said. "Bill was OK…if you don't mind talking about his new bathroom. No, it was more…just. Oh." She sighed. "It was just something Holly said."

"What'd she say?" I asked. I hoped I wouldn't have to spend the rest of the night telling Sookie that she looked fantastic and Holly had been talking out of her arse. I really wanted to have sex and spending a bunch of time trying to build up Sookie's self-confidence again was going to eat into sex-time.

"Just that, well, did I think it would be me next?"

"You what…oh." I realised what they'd been talking about. Of course, it was an engagement party, after all. They were speculating about whether I'd ask Sookie. This was another test. I was absolutely positive I could ace it.

"Well, OK. If you want."

"If I want what?"

"If you want. We can get married, or, engaged I guess. Yeah. That's fine with me." Problem solved.

Sookie's face didn't look like the problem had been solved. Sookie's face looked like thunder. "What do you mean 'if you want'?"

"Well, what I said." Guess she hadn't figured I'd cotton on so quickly. Points to me when she did though. "If you want to get married, we can get married. Sometime. I'm OK with that. Makes sense." I shrugged. This was easy really. Mum'd be pleased.

"Mum'll be pleased," I said to Sookie. Sookie still didn't look pleased.

"Oh, yeah, because it's all about Pam, isn't it Eric? She keeps asking too. She's always asking me what our plans are, like it's all on my flippin' head."

Well, that was probably because she liked Sookie and thought I'd never get my act together. Ha. Proved her wrong.

"So, we'll do it then, yeah?" I asked Sookie, preparing for her to leap into my arms and absolutely not prepared for what happened next.

"Seriously Eric? That's it? 'Yeah, let's get married, because I can't think of enough reasons not to.'" That was a really crappy imitation of me for a start. And it was kind of cruel. I was doing what she wanted after all.

"I thought you wanted to get married?" I asked her.

"Oh, because you're such a catch, is that it? Poor little old me, the shop assistant who can't get anyone better?"

"No." Yes. She could. The fact she hadn't realised that yet had been working in my favour for a very long time now and if it changed then I was screwed six ways 'til Sunday. "I thought…"

"No, you quite clearly didn't," Sookie said. "You thought I'd just say 'sure, whatever' like you're asking me what takeaway to get on the way home from work. But this is important Eric; this isn't a casual comment on the fucking train home from Billericay. This is for the rest of your life, you know. You can't just…oh, never mind."

"I thought it was what you wanted. You brought it up. And now you make it sound like we're getting a dog."

"Well, maybe we could Eric. But I wouldn't at the moment. Not when I don't know if you'll stick around."

"Wait, what?" Where the hell had that come from?

"That bloody flat you own. Your own little bolt-hole. How do I know I won't come home one day and find you've just moved back into it?"

Because I wouldn't, that's why. "Well, if that is what you think, then maybe I should."

"Maybe you should indeed," Sookie said, and then she turned away from me to stare at the black, blank window of the train carriage. I looked at her reflection and wished that her eyes didn't have tears in them.

If she'd just said yes, then she wouldn't be feeling so bad now, would she?

The rest of the night didn't go as I had planned. I did not get to help Sookie remove the nice dress that clung to her in the right places. And I certainly didn't get to touch Sookie after she climbed into bed, wearing a large t-shirt, and turned her back to me. I half-expected to be relegated to the sofa, but maybe that went against the rules on leaving useless objects laying all over it? Was I just another useless object to Sookie?

Quite possibly. She didn't want to marry me. I'd asked her, and she'd basically told me I was being stupid.

That hurt. A lot.

I lay there and looked at the ceiling for a very long time trying to go back over the evening and work out where it had all gone wrong. If I traced it right back, back to the start then maybe, just maybe, it was all because Sookie was having a horrible time at work and it wasn't actually anything to do with me. I mean, I was having a shit time with Victor, but I managed to push that to one side and focus on Sookie. I was good at compartmentalising.

But Sookie wasn't. It was Sookie who'd been in tears before I even walked in the door.

So I had just picked a shit time to ask her. She'd come around. She was still here. I wasn't living by myself in a semi-detached house in Billericay that I'd bought cheap off my mum when she went into a nursing home and consoling myself by planning another trip to the Imperial War Museum. Nope. I wasn't Bill Compton. I was OK. I had Sookie.

I thought I did anyway.

I didn't wake up the next morning until after Sookie had left the bed. Normally, if she wasn't working on a Saturday we lazed around and read the papers and maybe I made a run to the cafe down the street and brought back bacon rolls with extra brown sauce, which was the way Sookie liked them, and then we'd have sex, lots of sex, and eventually roll out of bed in time to get to the pub for mid-afternoon.

I loved Saturdays like that.

This Saturday was going to be different, I realised. I'd only been awake a few minutes when Sookie appeared in the doorway, fully dressed. "I'm going out," she said.

"You're…leaving?" I asked her. I sat up and looked to see if there was a suitcase anywhere around. The chest of drawers opposite the bed still held a jumbled mess of Sookie's cosmetics and perfumes and hair…things. I couldn't tell if any of it was packed. I was about to get up and check the contents of the wardrobe when Sookie spoke.

"I'm going shopping. With Kennedy and Claudine from work. Bit of a busman's holiday I know, but I need to get out."

"Because of last night?"

"Yeah. I just…I think you need time, Eric."

"For what?"

"For you. Just have a think…and stuff. I'll be back around four." And with that she walked out again. I did the only thing I could think of at that point in time. I went back to sleep.

When I woke up an hour later I still felt a bit nauseous. I wasn't hung over. I wondered if the prawns they'd had on skewers at the party the night before had been dodgy. Or I had had a curry at lunchtime. You never knew what they put in some of those.

I had a cup of tea, read some of the paper, flicked on the TV and watched it for a while. I took a shower.

I still didn't feel any better. And I was no closer to working out what I was supposed to be thinking about, either. This was it, though. The big test. The final exam. The one that I had to pass.

I wondered who I could bribe to give me the answers.

And then my phone rang. It was Mum.

"You coming? For lunch, tomorrow?" she asked. She wasn't big on greetings.

"Um. Yeah…"

"You don't sound very sure, Eric. Do you want to check with Sookie? She's not going to see her gran, is she?"

Sookie's gran was her only relative, apart from her brother who we rarely saw since he moved to Surrey. We usually alternated Sunday visits between my mum and Sookie's gran, but this weekend was Mum's turn. I guessed. I wasn't sure what Sookie was planning to do though. Or if she'd still be here then.

Christ, that made me feel low.

"No. I mean, I'll be there. I just don't know about Sookie."

"What have you done, Eric?"

"Why do you assume it was me?" She was always jumping to conclusions about me.

"Well, was it?"

"No." Yes. Maybe. "I don't know. She just went…a bit funny last night. And now she's out for the day."

"So what prompted the funniness?" Typical, she couldn't leave well enough alone, could she?

"Um…I suggested we should get married…"

"Sookie said no?" Mum sounded upset. Good. She'd be on my side then.

"Well, she said a lot of stuff. I think the gist was that I was bit off-hand about it, because we were on the train, from Billericay, and I said we could, if she wanted…"

"And that was how you phrased it? If she wanted?"

"Um…yes…" And now I felt like I'd failed my mum's test. This was worse than when she found all those copies of _Loaded_ in my room and decided to lecture me on how women weren't objects. I knew that. But they were still nice to look at. It wasn't a sin, was it?

And these days I only looked at Sookie like that, anyway. So that was definitely OK, and meant I wasn't a pervert after all.

"Well." Mum sighed down the phone. "I'm not even sure what that is, Eric. I guess it's a different way of going about it. I don't think it's going to get the result you really wanted though."

"No." I sounded glum, even to myself.

"Well, you'll have to sort it out" Mum said. "Before tomorrow, if you please, because I bought a leg of lamb and I know you can eat a lot, but it would be better shared between three. And if Sookie's gone, don't bother coming. I don't need you around here, bringing me down."

"Um. OK," I said. I'd hoped Mum would be more supportive. And then I realised that if there was ever a time to start asking my mother questions, this was probably it. "How?"

"Well, I don't want you moping all over the place. It was bad enough when Karin gave you the elbow, and she wasn't a patch on Sookie. That's how you'll bring me down."

"No. I meant, how do I sort it?"

"Oh. I have no clue, Eric. You'll have to figure that one out. You're a bright boy, though. I'm sure you can do it. Just don't wander around with your head up your arse for too long, or else she'll move on and I'm not coming around to prise your giant frame off the sofa again. OK, I have a lunch-date with Miriam so I'll see you tomorrow. Or not. Let me know. Bye!" And then she hung up. And took my last hope with her.

I went to the cafe by myself and ate a bacon roll, drank more tea. It wasn't the same without Sookie. I contemplated going to the pub, but wasn't sure I wanted to start drinking this early in the day. It was tempting to just down pints until I stopped feeling sick and I started feeling numb, but that wouldn't get me the answers I needed.

And I knew that Sookie coming home and finding me half-pissed and flopped on the sofa wasn't going to fix anything I'd broken, either.

Because it was starting to look like it was my fault, and that really depressed me.

I wished this was a work problem. Wished it was some valuation that was out of kilter that I could set Bill on to sorting out, or if it was a client I could stop defecting with the promise of a slap-up meal and a bottle of wine, or it if was a just a matter of getting the right numbers in the right boxes and getting it all to add up, then I would be home and hosed.

But this didn't add up. None of it added up. Sookie wasn't working with the same numbers I was, that much was clear.

And the only person I thought could help me with it was the person who helped with all of this stuff. Sookie. She was the only person I'd ever talked to about, well, anything. I'd always played it safe, done what I was good at, taken the easy route and picked up the accolades along the way.

So at first, I'd been like that with Sookie too. I hadn't talked about work. As far as she knew it was great, and I was happy. And I was. But Sookie was fine with discussing all her problems and talking them through, and she didn't even mind my more outlandish suggestions like flashing her boobs at Quinn to see if he'd off Andre for her. Even when what I was saying wasn't a real suggestion, but was just designed to make her laugh and cheer up, she'd always looked so happy to just be…talking with me.

And then I tried it. And it was OK. Talking about what you did, and what you hoped would happen. Talking about the shit that rained down from Victor and the endless boring conversations with Bill. All the while hoping that I'd never end up like either of them, and knowing that as long as I had Sookie to talk to, I probably wouldn't. She let me get it all off my chest, and severely reduced the chance I'd just one day go mental and take them all with me in a blood-bath instigated by Victor asking for one more audit.

But Sookie wasn't here to talk to. I decided to go for a walk. A long walk. And then I ended up on a bus again, going out to Docklands.

I let myself into my flat. It was empty at the moment. The last tenants, an Australian couple here on a working holiday, had left a month before when they'd packed up and gone home before the winter really came on.

And I'd known that I had to make a decision about whether to keep it or not. A decision that couldn't be based just on the fact that the coolest thing I ever saw took place here. Once.

I stood in the flat, and I looked at the stone floor. I took a long time to remember Sookie on that floor. Naked on that floor. She'd looked spectacular.

I realised that I didn't need to be standing right here to remember her like that. And that as spectacular as she was at that moment, she'd always be spectacular to me.

By the time Sookie got home, I was ready for her. I'd figured out what to do. Sookie looked a bit confused though, when she found me.

"Why are you naked?" Sookie asked when she walked into the bedroom and put her shopping bags down. "Are you angling for sex, Eric?"

"Um, no." Yes, but maybe that could come later. Or now. If Sookie really wanted, I mean I only wanted to do what she wanted…and that was how I'd ended up in this mess in the first place.

Focus.

"Have you been drinking?" she asked.

"No." I hadn't, and yet as scary as this was, I felt fine. That was even scarier. "I didn't quite phrase it properly. Last night. When I said we could get married…"

"So you thought if I had an orgasm, I might not notice the way you said it?"

Well, maybe after several orgasms. Possibly it was a theory worth exploring? Sookie crossed her arms though, and didn't look all that up for it.

"So this is my attempt to rectify that."

"By getting me to have sex with you. I don't think you really understand how girls work, Eric."

No. I had no fucking clue most of the time. But I liked to think I was getting a bit of a handle on Sookie. Or maybe on myself. I was working on it, at least.

"Well. So. Anyway. This is it. This is me. This is what I'm offering."

"Sex?" Sookie scrunched up her face and looked confused.

"No. Well, yes. Sex. But what I'm actually trying to say is this is all I am. This is…it. I can't offer you some better version of myself; you've seen enough of me to know what it is you'd be getting…" Sookie laughed at that. I hoped she was laughing more with me than at me.

"So there you go. Will you take this…" and I gestured along my body,"…forever?"

"Why this, Eric? Why now?"

"Well, aside from the fact I was a little misguided last night, I realised that you've always laid yourself bare to me, Sookie. You let me know when you've had a shitty day at work, and you tell me when you're pissed off with me, and you want to be with me, even when I'm just watching the Hammers play and you're just…you're the person I want to be with forever. And I'll sell the flat, even though I will always remember what you looked like on that floor. But that's OK, because I'll have you and that's better than a flat with a stone floor. That's the person I love most in the world. So, Sookie Stackhouse, will you marry me?"

"You couldn't have put your pants on first?" Sookie asked, as she smiled and tears poured down her face. It was kind of confusing trying to pick which emotion to go with. It must be exhausting living inside Sookie's head sometimes.

"I was trying to make a statement. Like you with the cigarettes that time. Although from that I mostly got hot girl smoking, not so much that smoking is a nasty habit which none of us should indulge in."

"Well, I have to say, Eric. Mostly I'm getting hot guy wants to marry me right now, so I think your strategy is working."

"So that's a yes?"

"Yes," Sookie said, and she climbed on to the bed next to me. "Yes, it's a yes." She grinned and she hugged me, and the expression on her face was…well, I had a new coolest thing I ever saw.

Although I still loved Sookie undressed. I always would. There were points for that, right?

**If you liked that and want to read more from me, I have another entry, Trigger Happy, featuring an Eric under pressure and facing down the barrel of a gun. Literally. How trigger happy is Victor Madden? I also had a story included as a promo for IWTS called Hole in the River which has Hunter as a narrator, and (possibly) a taniwha, which is a supernatural creature from New Zealand.**

**Big thanks to Northwoman for hosting the contest and thanks to you guys for reading!**


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